Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

LAINEY

I've never felt like this before.

That truth has been dancing around the edges of my brain all week, but now, with Jake buried inside of me in the closet of a home we've broken into…

I can't deny it anymore

He said he doesn't want to leave me, and I want to believe him. I want to believe that we can build something beautiful together.

I want to believe it so badly, the tears I've tried holding back threaten to track down my cheeks. Because I have something I don't want to lose, and I'm worried it will be taken away.

He leans his forehead down against mine and whispers my name, still inside of me. Like he really doesn't want to leave. "You think we're the first people to ever fuck in here?"

I shove his arm, laughing a little as he pulls out and sets me on my feet.

I feel the loss of him and of the moment.

He leans down and kisses me, then pauses and kisses me again, like he can't help himself. "We have to get out of here," he says. Then he nods at the open suitcase, which we left splayed on the ground. "You should take photos for your boss."

"You think I should tell her?" I ask, surprised.

"I don't want you to get in trouble because of me." He pauses, tucking himself away and zipping up his pants. "And Anthony's a good guy, mostly. He deserves a head's up…especially because of blond dick."

"You don't think Nina took the necklace," I confirm.

His lips firm, and he shakes his head. And I feel a burn of shame for having doubted for even a second that he has a brother. He wears his concern for Ryan like a cloak. "No," he says hoarsely. "Anthony either. Maybe Emma has it. Or Mrs. Rosings. Maybe she'll admit something's up if she sees that photo."

"Nicole's coming back from Charlotte," I say. "She can help us. She's good at this kind of thing. Plus we still have the tea this weekend. If anyone can make them talk, it's Joy."

"What if none of the Rosings Smiths have it?" he says. "We've been assuming they do, but it could have been any of the guests at that party."

"Then we'll find another way," I insist.

He smiles at me and bends to kiss my forehead. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry I thought the worst," I gush. "Bad habit. It's hard for me to—"

He weaves our hands together and lifts mine to kiss the back. It feels like his lips leave a tattoo—a mark I'll carry forever. "It's hard for me to trust people too. It was rational of you to question me." Then he drops my hand and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He pulls something up before handing it to me.

It's his text conversation with ASSHOLE. I scroll through it, my mouth dropping open, because there are a few proof-of-life photos of Ryan. His hair is slightly shorter than Jake's, but the lines of his face and the shape of his eyes are the same. His body has the same fluid grace, and even the fox on fire is in the same position on his arm.

"You look almost exactly alike," I say.

His mouth quirks up. " Almost ?"

I study one of the photos, trying to put my finger on what makes Ryan look different to me. "It's the black tooth."

"Very funny," he says, reclaiming his phone.

I capture his hand. "It's the set of his jaw, the way he's sitting, and the little scar under his lip. It's a dozen different little things, but he's not you."

He smiles at me as if this pleases him, then nods again at the suitcase. I take out my phone to get the photos of the jewelry.

Afterward, we pack it back up the way it was, returning it to the bottom of the stack. The ball goes back in its place too, and we flick off the light. I use the bathroom to clean up, drying off the sink so it doesn't look like anyone used it, and we leave the way we came, Jake locking the door behind us.

We walk back toward the car hand in hand. I wait until we're in the woods to ask, "That's why he wanted you, isn't it? The man—"

"His name's Roark," Jake says.

My heart soars, because this means he's decided to accept our help, all the way. "Roark," I repeat. "He wanted you because you were twins. Because one of you could be talking to the mark while the other took whatever he wanted."

He gazes at me in the dark as we circle a tree. "Sure. It's the perfect alibi if no one finds out. But I didn't realize that when I was a kid. I thought he was just helping us. One abandoned kid to another. He told us he'd been a foster kid too. Of course, that was probably a bunch of bullshit, but I didn't figure it out until later."

"He used you," I say, fury beating into the words.

He squeezes my hand, a smile playing on his lips. "We might have been kids when we met him, but we haven't been kids for a long time. Still, I'll gladly accept your righteous fury on my behalf."

"I'm upset about Nina, too," I admit.

He tucks his arm around me. "I know. But maybe we don't just help women who've been heartbroken and used. Maybe we help anyone who deserves some vindication."

I glance up at him, surprised, and see his eyes glimmering in the night. "You want to help Anthony?"

"I do." He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing attractively in his throat, my fingers wanting to capture it, my teeth to bite. "I think we should. He's a case for the Love Fixers if I've ever seen one."

He's talking about the future like it's something we're going to share. Hope blossoms in my chest, and with any luck it's not the kind of bloom that lasts for only one day—beautiful and then dead. I want to preserve it in glass.

We get to our cars, and Jake kisses me softly before opening my door for me. I get in behind my wheel and watch while he does the same. Seconds later, a hand snakes around from the back and grabs my shoulder.

"Jesus!" I scream as I turn around in my seat.

"I've been called worse," Nicole says, laughing. She's wearing a beanie, a black shirt, and leggings—robbery gear.

"Did you follow us to the house?"

"I did," she says with a grin, "and then back. I saw you canoodling with the thief, so air high five for winning my bet for me. I figured Damien had it in the bag when he found out about the old guy and the watch. He figured so too. He was gloating, but that won't last."

"There's something seriously wrong with you two," I say, my heart settling back into a more natural rhythm. "Are you riding home with me, or do you have your car here?"

"I took an Uber to the greenway," she says as she climbs into the front seat next to me.

Jake rolls down his window a few cars down. "You've got to stop picking up strays," he says. He's joking, but I hear a thread of worry in his voice. He's concerned she'll convince me not to trust him.

"It worked out okay for me last weekend," I tell him, rolling my window down to answer. The fall air comes seeping in, smelling of pine and crushed leaves. "I'll see you back at the house."

Turning forward, I say, "Buckle up, buttercup."

She rolls her eyes but does it, and I pull out of the lot a few beats after Jake.

"So, as happy as I am to have won my bet," Nicole says, " why were you canoodling with the watch thief? Do you have a secret fetish for the tears of old men?"

"He didn't do it," I say. "He has an identical twin."

She gives me a doubting look and scratches her head under the hat. "When a man tells you his identical twin did it, Lainey, you should absolutely punch him in the face."

"I saw photos of Ryan," I tell her, since ‘I believe him,' won't wash. "He exists. That's why this guy doesn't want to lose them. They're the perfect thieves."

Her eyes light up. "Holy shit, seriously? Twins wig me out, but we need to get the other one and make a pair."

"We're not going to use them," I say tightly, moving slowly through the neighborhood. "They've already been used enough."

"No, no." She waves a hand, grimacing when someone outside the car waves back. "We're not going to use them. They're going to use other people for us. For a good cause, obviously."

I decide not to object. If this is the motivation she needs to find and help Ryan, I'm all for it.

I quickly tell her about what we found, from the blond guy's dick pic to the stash of Mrs. Rosings's jewels.

Nicole whistles, her eyes glimmering in the dark. "You still got a boner for saving Nina?"

I sigh. "Fine, I'll admit it, I was projecting. She's a jerk. Jake actually thinks we should help Anthony once this is all settled."

She laughs softly in the dark. "Well, all right. Hiring someone who's willing to marry a hot millionaire will probably be the easiest gig we can get."

"Famous last words," I say. "Did you get anything else out of Emma?"

She puckers her mouth. "She's a worthy adversary, but I don't think she has the necklace. She's got plenty of money, and when I brought up the documentary, she seemed annoyed. Didn't get a my precious vibe. But…" She shrugs. "Worthy adversary. It's possible. Right now, my money's on the old lady. Maybe she snatched it to set up Nina, and now she's wondering if dementia has set in because she's got an exact copy sitting in her case."

I nod, but I'm not convinced. There's still a chance Nina stole it and hid it somewhere other than the suitcase—or even gave it to blond dick guy.

When I pull up to the cabin, Jake's already parked in the driveway, next to Nicole's car. He's standing by the driver's side door, leaning against it as he watches us pull in, and relief travels through me as quickly as the growth cycle of an invasive plant. Part of me worried he wouldn't come back—that he'd freak out after telling me about Ryan and Roark, especially knowing that Nicole was in the car with me.

"Something's different between you," Nicole comments as I turn off the engine. "And it's not just the power of the peen."

I roll my eyes at her, and she shocks me by saying, "You know, the reason I didn't pull the trigger on Todd was because I knew you'd do it yourself when the time came."

"You did?"

She pats my arm. "My sister needed help getting revenge. You didn't." She pulls a face. "Then again, all you really did was ruin his most prized possession and send it back to him in splinters."

"You know about that?"

"You used the Love Fixers' mailing account."

I nod, because that was a rookie move, then tell her, "I'm sure it emotionally destroyed him. He cares about that bat more than he does about any living person."

She studies me in the dark. "And yet he let you take it."

"Who says he let me? I said he knew I had it. He may be a big man in the board room, or those parties he goes to, but I don't think anyone had ever stolen anything from him before. And when I found out he'd been cheating on me, I invited him to the park for a picnic and then set his expensive collared shirts on fire in front of him. I think he's afraid of me."

She grunts with amusement. "What about your parents?"

"I took away the one investment they put the most time and money into."

"Don't tell me you're talking about this hideous car."

I laugh. "No. Me. I think that's enough revenge."

She considers this for a second before nodding. "I'm not worried about you at all. You, Lainey Catlan, might have gotten lost for a while, but you know exactly who you are and what you're doing. Even your fuckup with the thief ended up okay."

In that moment, I believe her. I feel better than okay, actually. I feel like I'm on the cusp of actually being the person I'm supposed to be, living the life that suits me.

If I can prevent it all from tumbling down.

We get out of the car, and Nicole claps her hands. "So…time to get drunk?"

The question is loud and asked for both Jake and me. He scratches his head and looks at me, his eyes deep and dark in the night. Then he shifts his gaze to her. "Nah, not right now. Lainey tells me I can trust you."

"Yes, but you can't trust my memory. If you're about to spill your guts, we should wait until Damien gets here. He knew about your visit to Anthony's house but not about your twin brother, so I'm guessing he's in a hurry. We might as well have a drink or five while we wait."

"Don't you have a hangover?" I ask her, crossing the few feet that separate me from Jake and taking his hand. I'm claiming him, I guess, and my heart flutters like a trapped butterfly when he squeezes my hand, accepting the claim.

"Oh, hell yeah, this is the king daddy of hangovers," she says with a whistle. "But when I meet my adversary again, I'm going to defeat her. I need to prepare for battle. Emma Rosings Smith will never outdrink me again, mark my words."

Jake squeezes my hand and shoots me a look. "These are the people who are going to save me?"

"Yeah," I say. "I think so. God help us both."

We make a fire in the backyard and start passing around a bottle of bourbon from the kitchen—Nicole's "good stuff." The fire has barely roared into existence by the time we hear a car pull up out front. Damien circles the corner of the house half a minute later, moving fast. A look of…relief crosses his face when he sees Jake sitting with us.

"I'm guessing there's a good reason he's not tied up in the basement?" Damien asks. "Or is he torturing you with a good time?"

Laughter escapes me, and Jake leans his shoulder against mine, while Nicole gets up and takes a running jump at Damien. When he catches her, she wraps her legs around his waist, laughing in his ear. "I think they only do that when we're not home. Speaking of which, you lost our bet, hot stuff."

He kisses her and sets her down, grumbling under his breath, and I lift the bottle of bourbon. "Need a drink, Bronuts?"

He laughs as he sits in Nicole's abandoned chair, pulling her onto his lap. "I'd apologize for the bet, but I'm obviously going to pay for it." Then he takes the bottle from me and slugs back a long sip.

I feel Jake watching us, soaking everything in. I meet his gaze, and I can feel how big this is for him—to share all the things he's kept hidden for most of his life. To trust not just me but the people I care about with the most important person in his life.

I reach for his hand, and my heart swells when he threads his fingers through mine, holding on to me like I'm his lifeline.

"So what was it?" Damien asks him, his gaze sharp. "Why'd you come back and take the watch from the old guy? Were you threatened?"

Jake tells him about Ryan, then shows the photos of his brother to both Damien and Nicole.

"And your last name?" Damien asks pointedly.

Jake sucks in a breath, decides—quite rightly—that they're going to find out anyway, and besides, he's come this far…

"Langston. Jake and Ryan Langston. Roark's first name is Ed."

We drink some more as Jake tells us everything he knows about Edmund Roark. Where his apartment in NYC is located, Tribeca. How long he's been stealing high-price items from rich people, over forty years. How old he is—sixty or maybe older, but fit. He does it partly for fun. Because he doesn't sell everything he takes or hires others to take. He has a fucking museum of stolen things.

"You've seen this with your own eyes?" Damien asks with interest.

"No. But he's the one who bragged about it. It's not in his apartment; I've looked. But he has other real estate."

I've never met this Roark guy, but I'm pretty sure I'd like to burn his fortress down to the ground, leaving only ash.He gets off on having power over people, from Jake and his brother to the owners of his stolen toys.

"Find the museum, we got him dead to rights," Damien observes.

"I don't want to ask for any trouble, especially not when he has Ryan."

"We'll get your brother out first," Damien says, seeming pleased. He and Nicole exchange a glance, and it hits me that all four of us are adrenaline junkies—looking for our next fix and hoping it won't bury us.

"Ryan might know," Jake says, sounding tired. "The museum is where Roark would have kept the watch." He stares into the fire for a moment, then says, "He'll have proof that my brother and I worked for him."

Nicole gives him a not-so-patient smile. "The powers that be give much less of a shit about Oliver Twist than they do about the guy who told him what to snatch. But, sure, we're sympathetic to your point. And if they know you were involved, they'll probably want to keep an eye on you. If we can do this without involving the authorities, that might be best all around."

Jake picks up the bottle of bourbon and lifts it to the sky.

"I'll drink to that."

So he does, and I do.

Damien seeks out Jake's gaze. "Dale seemed pretty torn up about thinking something might have happened to you. You might want to reach out to him."

Jake breaks their stare-off. "I can't do that. I'd be incriminating Ryan."

"Who did nothing but take a gift that was offered to him. No criminal charges would apply."

"Identity theft. Pretending to be someone else."

"I'm not going to try to talk you into it," Damien says with a shrug. "You make your own decisions, but if I've learned anything over the years, it's that your ghosts will keep haunting you unless you lay them to rest."

"He's still alive." Jake says it a little urgently. Like he's asking, not telling.

"For now," Damien agrees. "But none of us are getting any younger."

Jake nods but quickly changes the subject, asking for their read on whether I should tell Mrs. Rosings about the other stolen jewels.

Damien shrugs. "Might as well. Maybe she can scare Nina into coughing up the other one…if she has it. Of course, we'd have to go through the trouble of stealing it again, but at this point we just need to know where it is." He falls silent for a second, looking off into the distance, in the direction of the rolling mountains, barely illuminated by a sliver of moon. "What are the chances your boss will know if you give him the fake? Mrs. Rosings still hasn't figured it out."

"Presuming she's not the one who took it from the box in the first place," I put in, Damien acknowledging the point with a nod.

Jake swallows. "He'd know. Joe does other fakes for him. There's a…signature of sorts."

"Well, that's inconvenient," Nicole says with a sigh. "But we still have a week. We can manage this."

Later, Claire and Declan join us at the fire. I'm curious about where Rosie's been—she's not the sort of person to fade into the night—but I don't ask, and they don't say, and suddenly it's late, the dark nearly shifting into light. Claire and Declan go home. Nicole and Damien go upstairs, and Jake and I stay out later than any of them, even after the fire fades to embers. He douses it with sand, then gives me his hand. I let him pull me up from my chair.

"Thank you for believing in me," he says, when I'm standing inches from him, his hand resting on my hip.

"I didn't," I admit, feeling guilty about it.

"That's what it felt like to me earlier," he says, sweeping my hair away from my face. "But you did believe in me. If you'd genuinely thought I was lying about everything, you wouldn't have gone to that house with me. You would have thought of an excuse to put it off until Nicole or Damien got back. But you didn't. You went with me because you hoped I'd have an explanation."

I consider this, then nod in acknowledgment. I needed him to have an explanation, because what Damien had told me had broken something inside of me.

"There's something I need to show you."

He leads me inside and upstairs to his room—his original room—and removes something from the back of the closet. I instantly recognize it as the bag that I retrieved from his Airbnb. I've been thinking of that bag, wondering what it could contain.

"You didn't look at this," he says. "I know you didn't. But I want to show you." He grins at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "And if you tell anyone else, I'll claim you planted it."

"You're building this up to the point where anything will be a disappointment," I say.

He laughs, then nods to the bed, and we sit next to each other, our thighs pressed together. The bag is sitting next to us. It's not enough, though, so I turn toward him and climb onto his lap, facing him. He smiles at me, like he's not surprised but is very much pleased. "It's not a particularly funny story, hellcat."

"It's yours, and I want it. Not everything in life needs to be funny."

A corner of his mouth lifts. "But it helps if you can find humor in everything."

He upends the bag onto the mattress without ceremony. A small, worn teddy bear falls out, one of the eyes crusted-over plastic, like the bear has aged the way an actual bear might.

"Is there something inside of it?" I ask, thrown.

"No," he says, laughing. "It's not stuffed with cocaine or the codes to bank safes. It's exactly what it seems to be, and I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I know it's really fucking weird for a grown-ass man to carry around a teddy bear everywhere he goes. Especially one that looks like that. I'd feel more dignified if it were Paddington."

Something twists inside of me, and I remember a few of the things he's told me about his past—puzzle pieces thrown out with pretended carelessness. How his mother left them. How he and Ryan never knew their father…

He swallows. "This is…" He swallows again, and even though I already chose to believe him, any iota of doubt that might have been left in me is obliterated by the look on his face. "I don't like being locked in because when we were four, our mother locked us into a motel room by the beach in Jersey and left. We didn't know how to unlock the door. So we waited for her, and we ate the gummy bears and Goldfish she left with us, and the only thing we had left was this damn teddy bear, only one for the two of us. She told us not to make any noise, because it would get her into trouble, so we didn't."

"How long was she gone?" I ask, running a hand over his jaw and then the side of his face.

"Four days. She had up a Do Not Disturb sign, but she'd only reserved the room for four days, so when she didn't check out—" His hand slides down my back, settling on my hip. "Don't look at me like that, Elaine. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. We were better off without her. I don't carry it around for sentimental reasons. It's a reminder."

"Not to trust anyone?" I ask softly.

"That my brother and I can make it through anything if we stick together…and also that I never want to let myself get stuck like that again. It's the first thing I remember."

"Did she come back?"

He shakes his head. "No, but they found her. She'd met some guy. Said she'd lost track of time. She didn't fight it when they put us into foster care. I think it was a relief."

"I'm sorry," I say, kissing the side of his face and then his mouth. "Thank you for telling me."

"I need to get him back, Lainey. I need to."

I stare into his green-flecked eyes and make a promise I'm determined to keep. "We're going to."

And then I kiss him again, pouring into it all of the feelings I can't yet find words for.

I trust you.

I want you.

I'm falling in love with you.

"Do you want to hide the teddy bear's face?" I ask, sliding my hand under his shirt. "Because I'm about to do some bad, bad things to you."

"He's at least thirty," Jake says with a smirk. "It's about time he learns about the birds and the bees."